Autumn

Autumn has set in properly! All through most of May, the weather has been beautifully warm, with cool evenings. Now it’s COLD for much longer, and is getting down to below zero overnight! My outdoor ‘office’ is getting a little chilly, and I can see me needing a blanket and fingerless gloves soon, if I’m to keep working out here.

I seem to ‘need’ to be outdoors, at the moment. The only time I’m in the house is in the evening and when I sleep. Otherwise, even when I’m not working, I sit outside. That said, Bernie gave me advice on how to light a fire without firelighters, and it worked!! Small twigs and leaves (and I added a fir cone) first, then add logs, and bob’s your uncle, a fire!! I was so pleased with myself!!

However, the next day, I was less pleased. A log had been smouldering over night, and maybe because it’s warm and stiller during the day at lunchtime, or because the damper was closed, I came in to find smoke filling the lounge instead of going up the chimney! I remember this happening to me in Austria, when I was 17, and lit the wood-burning stove during the day. (the boss hit the roof!) Any suggestions as to why this happens would be welcome!

Everything has turned brown and red. With the trees losing their leaves, cleaning the pool is Sisyphean. As well as the leaves, seeds similar to sycamore but much smaller are covering the surface, and as quickly as you can collect them they return! I think they’re from the Japanese Maples which grow here. Kurt reassures me that this season won’t last for long, but I’m not entirely convinced. I feel to have been leaf-clearing for an age (well, a couple of weeks at least) and the leaves and seeds seem to be increasing rather than decreasing in quantity.

Over the last four weeks we’ve been trying to find a gardener, and finally settled on Shadrick. He seems lovely; a quiet young Malawian who cares about what he is doing. He’s already showing me plants he’d like us to get for the winter, and is reorganising and tidying our flower beds. Even without flowers in bloom, they're looking much better.

Kurt has been attending to the pond, so we paid a visit to a Koi place near to us for advice on fish-keeping. That was an education. Our Koi have been growing, but this place had some which were about a metre long, and worth about 35000 Rands (15000HKD each!). I could see Kurt’s eyes gleaming at the thought of converting the pool for some of these giants!?!! But I’ll cost that amount to fix the borehole (the tank cracked), so sorry, Kurt, not happening (yet)!! We’ll just have to keep feeding the ones we have!

I had never really ‘got’ why people would have koi (or any fish) in a pond, but since having to look after ours I’m getting an insight. Feeding them, you get to see different personalities and behaviours; the three small ones seem to keep out of the way and take second-turn to the larger ones, sneaking in for food when the large fish’s backs are turned. The big ones dive in and bicker and nip each other, competing for the pellets. One of the large fish has feathery gills, which another seems to like to home in on, so they flash around, snatching food in and amongst as they chase.  

The last couple of days, though, as the weather has become positively chilly they’ve been very quiet, not even wanting food. It seems the whole garden is going to sleep. Shadric is wrapping our more-tender trees and shrubs and some of the ground plants are frost-bitten and looking very sorry for themselves.

But it's still beautiful, and the sky is always blue! Just as I did in Hong Kong, I look with disbelief at where I live and am very grateful.